The Southern Zonal Manager of Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG), Nana Amma Oforiwaa Sam, has urged Queenmothers to use their influence to intensify family planning education towards reducing unwanted pregnancies and abortions in their communities.

She explained this would help reduce the fertility rate in their communities and the risk of women dying from complicated pregnancies and unsafe abortions.

Mrs Sam was speaking at a meeting with some selected Queenmothers engaged in the efforts at reducing the Maternal Mortality and Morbidity rates in the Eastern Region.

The project is being implemented by PPAG in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service, with funding from Ipas Ghana.

The project, which started in 2012, involves the use of the Queenmothers to promote safe abortions and family planning in their communities, while referring those who needed services to the health institutions in their communities.

The Queenmothers appealed to the project coordinators to motivate more midwives in public health institutions to give the needed support to those they referred to them.

Ipas, founded in 1973, is a global Non Governmental Organisation dedicated to ending preventable deaths and disabilities from unsafe abortion.

Through local, national and global partnerships, Ipas works to ensure that women can obtain safe, respectful and comprehensive abortion care.